PsyOps
by silsecri
Summary: MA PostFreak Nation. Sometimes wishing isn't enough. The title has been edited to fit a PG rating. You can imagine what it says there.


Title: Psy-Ops (1/1)

Author: lyra (aka silsecri)

Rating: T

Pairing: M/A

Summary: Sometimes, wishing's just not enough.

Setting: Almost a year after Freak Nation.

Diclaimer: I don't own the show or the characters.

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**Psy-Ops Fucked**

by Lyra

Command was almost empty in the middle of the night. Only three people were on watch at this hour. There was no need for more. The rest was happily asleep… or not… in their beds.

Which is where Max would love to be right now. But her bedmate had left her alone again. And Command was where she knew she'd find him.

There was no need for Alec to be there right then. There had been a late planning session for a B&E the following night that would finance TC's new nursery building -- the number of babies had increased considerably and their old childcare place was getting too small to house everyone --, and there was a personnel meeting first thing the next morning.

Both she and Alec had been in the planning session, and they'd have to attend the meeting. It stood to reason that they should get any rest they could. And the first part of their night hadn't been spent exactly sleeping.

Still, there she was, following after Alec. He'd come back after she fell asleep and he'd just fool around in the office for a while and then probably fall asleep on his couch.

It happened more and more every time.

She walked into the office and Alec looked up at her, barely acknowledging her before he went back to the papers in front of him. She stood in the doorway for a long time. Since Command was almost empty there was no-one on this side of the building. They were alone.

"I'm tired," she said finally.

Alec looked up again. Almost surprised to see her still there. "What?"

"Tired, Alec. I just can't take it anymore." Max took a few steps into the office, standing in the middle of the small room.

"Max, what are you talking about?"

Max snorted. "Us! Alec. I'm talking about us." The anger she tried to make heard barely covered the hurt. "Can you honestly tell me you don't know what I'm talking about?"

Alec kept quiet. But he didn't go back to read. He stood and walked around the desk, leaning back into it and crossing his arms, giving her his full attention. He refused to say the words, but his defensive stance spoke loudly.

"Exactly. I know it, you know it. I know that you know it… What I don't get is why. _Why_ aren't we working?"

"What makes you say we don't? We've been okay." Alec's words sounded sincere enough, but they didn't reach his eyes.

"You want to know? Okay," Maxie took the bait. She'd spell it out for him if he needed to hear it. She closed the distance between them and sat sideways on the desk beside him, looking at him. "Every time you walk into a room my eyes go to you. I don't have to think about it. I can feel you getting close and I need to see you, just like that. Do you know how many times you've done that?"

Alec looked away. "That doesn't mean anything. People show their feelings differently, Max."

"See? That's just it. We've been together for months now. And the way you act makes me feel like I don't even register for you. Like I'm one of your nameless sex-exploits, there for you to get off and then out of your mind. It's not even 'out of sight, out of mind', Alec. Every time we have sex, I get to _be_ with you for a few minutes and then you pull away. And I'm right there next to you."

Alec didn't say anything. There wasn't much he could say, anyway. He'd been waiting for this conversation for weeks now.

Max sighed. "I'm standing right here, in front of you, and the look in your eyes tells me you're thinking of the thing tomorrow."

"I'm not thinking about tomorrow, Max. I'm listening to you, okay? I am," Alec tried, not very successfully.

"But I don't feel it," she objected, her voice trembling and full of tears.

Alec closed his eyes because he couldn't close his ears. He hated the way her voice broke, and the pain in her eyes. He'd been trying to avoid it, he didn't want to hurt her but he'd been selfish. It was time to stop.

"I'm sorry," he said softly.

"For what? Not caring?" Max almost choked on the words. This was it. She knew she'd started it but it still felt like he was breaking her heart.

"Yes."

The word felt like a slap. She couldn't believe her ears. She stood and marched to the door. But Alec spoke again and his words glued her feet to the ground.

"I think they broke me."

She turned around. A moment ago she was convinced he was a heartless bastard who'd played her for a fool and now he looked like a lost little boy. "I don't understand."

Alec glanced at her and then went back to staring at his feet. "Manticore. Psy-Ops. Whatever." He shrugged, it didn't matter who, really. Just that they had. "They took me apart, and I think they did something to me when they put me back together."

Alec wasn't making any sense. "What do you mean?" He didn't say anything for a long time and Max walked closer to him. Just a few steps. "I don't understand, Alec."

"Those six months I spent in Psy-Ops after Berrisford…" Alec trailed off, seemed to change his train of thought. "I didn't know what had happened to me. Not then. Love was… But they did," he spat the words.

"Rachel…" Max didn't miss the flinch he couldn't avoid. They'd never really talked about that. She hadn't thought he'd ever be ready to.

"I loved her, Maxie. I really did. She made me _feel_. It wasn't just a crush. I didn't just think she was hot and can I please get in your pants now. It wasn't like that at all. That I knew. Rachel… She touched something in me."

"I know," Max offered simply. She wasn't sure Alec was listening, though. The words just rushed out of him.

"I didn't. Everything was too… I don't know, just too. But Sandoval knew. He'd seen my behavior, he'd suspected for a while by the time it all went south and that's why he had a second team there. Falling in love wasn't something X5s did. We weren't supposed to be able to. You know how they thought of us. Animals, soul-less. When he put me in Psy-Ops it wasn't just as punishment, or to reinforce their doctrine. I think he must have told them to take my brain apart and find where I'd gone wrong." Alec ran out of breath. He didn't seem to know how to go on.

"How would you know that? What makes you think that's even possible?" Maxie prodded him. This conversation was nothing like she'd imagined it would be.

"I found part of my file once. You know I had a bit of a side business in Manticore. It wasn't all pills. Intel is even more valuable than good drugs. I managed to get my hands on an excerpt of the final report on my Psy-Ops stay. There was mention of a procedure that I couldn't place anywhere."

"Well, it's not like they didn't experiment on us all the time, Alec. It could've been anything."

"The records mentioned Rachel a few times. To be honest, there wasn't anything really explicit. Nothing I could make a factual assumption from. And the possibility didn't occur to me for a long time, either. Then it was just something else they'd used me for."

Max waited for more. But Alec seemed to be lost in thought. Finally, she couldn't help herself. "So?"

Alec looked at her eyes then. "It was Asha, actually. She was the first to make me consider the possibility."

Max blinked. The words went to her brain but they didn't seem to translate into any sensible sentence. She struggled to make herself say it out loud. "Asha. Are you saying what I think you're saying?"

Alec gave her a half-apologetic look. "Probably."

Max huffed. "Well, that's great. Way to make a shitty night even worse, Alec. I can't believe you--"

"Hey, you have no leg to stand on that one, Max," Alec cut her off. "And you know it. After all the crap you've put me through with L-"

She didn't let him finish, either. "Forget it." She turned around again. This time she intended to leave. "I don't think I want to hear this, anyway."

Alec grabbed her arm before she could get away. "Yes, you want," he disagreed. "It won't be what you want to hear, but I think you'll want to hear it just the same."

Max sighed tiredly, she hesitated a moment longer before she gave up and went back to lean on the desk next to him. She didn't say anything, though. She'd already said her piece.

Alec kept his hand on her arm. Anchoring her to him because he knew she'd want to leave again soon. "I've had more one-night flings than I can count. I never got anything out of them beyond the sex, but it's not like I was looking. They were one-night stands for a reason."

Max snorted.

"Asha was different," Alec said and Max stiffened. He could feel the tension in her thigh all alongside his and she moved slightly away. He kept going. "She wasn't just a face, or a hot body. She kinda became a friend. I know you don't like her but she's a cool chick. Opinionated, caring, selfless -- to a point -- and yes, hot. She had the potential to be more than just sex."

Max muttered darkly under her breath but Alec didn't try to make out what she said. It didn't matter. What he had to say next, he knew, would get a harsher reaction.

"And the sex wasgood."

"Alec!" She stood and stepped away from him until his hand was the only thing that kept her in the office. The hurt was clear on her face. Alec knew she thought he'd never had sex with Asha. "You slept with her? You told me nothing had happened that night." Max had felt the sting of finding Asha on Alec's couch that night, even when she'd been totally blind to her own feelings for the X5 then. "You insisted on that several times," she challenged him.

"And it was the truth. We didn't sleep together that night. We hadn't slept together before that night. But we did have a 'relationship' after."

If looks could kill.

In the end, Max's ire deflated. "You never told me," she rebuked.

"Do you really want to get into that now? My point was that I expected to feel something for her. At first, it didn't mean anything that I didn't. It's not like I'm a romantic kinda guy. But we were together for almost six weeks and there was just nothing there beyond the physical. And this was after I ran into Berrisford, after I remembered Rachel. I knew what was missing by then."

Max kept her features blank. She didn't want him to know how much it hurt her to know he'd wanted to love Asha.

"I tried to convince myself that it was because she wasn't a transgenic. That maybe it wasn't meant to happen between transgenics and ordinaries…" Max opened her mouth but Alec didn't want to hear it. "No, Max, your story with Logan doesn't make me wrong, actually it just proves my point."

She glared at him. Mostly out of spite because, even if it was a knee-jerk reaction to defend her relationship with Logan, she kind of agreed with him.

"Anyway, I thought that may be the reason I didn't feel anything for her. And then, it was around the time transgenics started gathering here, before the showdown at Jam Pony. So I broke it off with Asha. It was back to ordinaries for a night and I started to look to Xs for anything more."

"Taryn."

"And Sela, yes. I spent some time with her, too, but nothing. Besides, you'd been with Logan all that time anyway. Keeping myself away from you was like a survival thing then," he offered her a piece offering. And she took it.

"Whiner. It was never that bad."

"Denial, Maxie." Alec gave her a small smile and then he frowned. "It kinda was, but I didn't care all that much then. If I'd been in love with you all that time, pining for your love like a sick puppy, then it would've been hell. But I'm not stupid, you know. I can tell when something's asking for a world of hurt. Being your friend then was all I wanted."

"You know you wanted me," she said softly. It was a running joke with them. Had been for so long now. But it felt to Max like the joke was on her now.

Alec smiled. "I did… after Logan left for good. Long before you decided you'd mourned enough. But not before."

"Why are you telling me all this? How's this something I want to hear, Alec?" Max asked in a small voice, her eyes on the floor.

"I am in love with you, Max."

Max looked up to him startled, her face showed she didn't know if she was happy or furious.

Alec crashed her again. "I know I am. I just can't feel it."

Her face fell; a few tears escaped her eyes. But confusion was clear in her look.

"Every time I hear your voice, or catch your scent, or see you smile… my heart skips a bit, my stomach flutters, the smile in my face is automatic. It's like a physical reaction my brain doesn't control. And it lasts all of one, maybe two seconds and then it's gone. And I'm left reeling. Because for a moment I'm lost, I know I'm missing something, a really important something."

Tears were now falling freely down her cheeks, but she refused to look away.

"Those few minutes you feel me there with you at night, and you're there hoping that will be the day it finally happens…? That's what I do, too, Max. I wish the feeling was there. Every. Time."

His words were like a hammer to her already bleeding heart. She wanted to beg him to stop, but her voice was gone. Along with her breath. She gasped for air and the sobs came.

Alec put the final nail in the coffin. "It just isn't. And I don't think it'll ever be again. Not for me."

Max found her voice then. "But you said you do feel it," she argued, desperate to hold onto anything.

Alec was shaking his head. "It's just a flash, Maxie, and then it's gone."

But Max didn't want to hear it. "Maybe if we give it more time…"

"It's been there from the beginning. From the moment I let myself go for it. Probably longer, to be honest." Alec needed to make her see things for what they were. It was time to stop wishing.

Max was wiping off her tears, her breath coming more easily now. She was getting herself under control, her mind working furiously. "But-"

"You said so yourself, Maxie. We've been together for months now, almost seven months exactly. It won't happen."

She insisted. "We'll get someone to look into it then. We're not going to just give up."

Maybe it had been a mistake to tell her. "Maxie, you're talking about my brain here. I know you like to pretend I don't have one but I do, and I'm really fond of it. I'm not gonna let 'someone' go playing around in it."

She stabbed her finger on his chest. Mad at him for making light of the whole thing. "I'm not suggesting open brain surgery, Alec. But, won't you even try? Ask around? Maybe get a scan?" Why didn't he want to try? Why hadn't he ever said anything?

"Where, Max? We're living in a toxic dump. TC isn't exactly blooming with high tech equipment. Who're you going to trust enough to put my live in their hands like that?"

It was like a glass of ice-cold water thrown at her face. "Alec…"

Alec reached for her hand. "I'm sorry. It's not fair to you. I know. I should've just let you go-"

"No!" Max ripped her hand away, stepping back from him again. "Of course not. I want to know. I needed to know. You love me, Alec. Don't you realize that's all I needed?"

Alec closed his eyes. He was tired of the whole thing already. Why couldn't she just get it?

"No, it isn't. Don't fool yourself, Maxie. Nothing will change. You'll still feel like I'm not there. Half an hour ago you were at the point where it felt so wrong it was better to just let go. And the fact that I know in my head that I love you doesn't change the fact that I'll never feel it. _You_'ll never feel it."

Max ignored him. "I'm not going to give up. Not now."

Alec exploded then. "Dammit, Max! How do you know I didn't make all that up to make you feel better?" he argued desperately.

"I don't feel better!" she shouted at him.

Alec flinched. Yeah, not so smart there. "Well, to hurt you then! How are you going to convince yourself I'm telling the truth next time I leave your bed, and you, without a second glance? Already thinking of the next item in my to-do list…"

Max looked at him speculatively and then smirked. "You were thinking about tomorrow's heist, weren't you?"

He gave up. "Yes, dammit! I was!"

She laughed. Alec couldn't believe it. What the hell was she laughing at?

He tried again. "Don't you see? It'll be too painful. Just--"

"No. I've never given up just because the odds against me were high. I'm not gonna start now." Max lifted her chin, defiance radiating from every pore of her body, and resolutely walked off.

Alec felt the smallest clench somewhere in the middle of his chest, there and gone with his next breath. He watched her retreating back, her hair swaying with every step, her hips dancing just for him.

He didn't want her to suffer anymore, it would be better if she accepted the way things were. Better for her, yes, but also for him. Watching her hurt wasn't a piece of cake. Even if he couldn't really appreciate the full impact of the feeling, the days she felt the lowest were always longer for him. His mind always that little bit slower than usual, almost too busy and overworked to function properly. And it didn't hurt him, but his usual disinterest wasn't as easy to tap into.

God, she was exasperating!

She turned a corner, disappearing from view, and he couldn't help a wishful last thought. _I hope her stubbornness comes through, though._

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Reviews are cherished, thank you! 


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